A few weeks back I noticed the more elaborate Lana’s Russian boosterism gets, the less time she has to do her actual job introducing Rusev and joked that one day she’d forget to talk about him at all — I didn’t think it would happen quite so soon. This week she rattled on about various Russians from Gorbachev to Tchaikovsky, and then just threw it to Lillian for Rusev’s actual intro. What exactly is your purpose on the show Lana? Well okay, dumb question, but at least try to keep up the pretense you’re on TV for something other than “short skirts and humorously mispronouncing Jim Duggan’s name”.

But perhaps there’s a tragic unspoken story here. Lana’s Russophilia has become so acute she can no longer stomach introducing a lowly Bulgarian. Rusev has done everything he can to rekindle what he once had with Lana — he’s moved to Moscow, he waves the Russian flag wherever he goes, but it’s not enough. He knows Lana can never truly love his impure non-Russian blood. Man, imaginary WWE is so much more dramatic than actual WWE.

WWE

Best: Obstructed Seating

If WWE really wanted to get Rusev some heat they would have just left the giant, ring blocking Russian flag up for the rest of the show. “Warning, all seats on the right side of the arena might have an obstructed view of the ring and FREEDOM.”

Best: A Good Triple Threat Match

Sorry for the lack of a clever headline, but that’s what BNB/RVD/Cesaro was. Just a good, solid triple threat. It was surprisingly low on “guy is knocked comatose for 10-minutes by a standard fall to the outside” situations and Barrett and Cesaro went to admirable lengths to set up RVD for his signature spots. All snuggling next to each other on the mat so Rob could double Rolling Thunder them. Real sports, those two.

So yeah, good stuff, but unless WWE actually plans to put one of the secondary titles on RVD or Cesaro, they need to find them something else to do now.

Worst: Hustle, Loyalty, Respect and Sometimes Murder

Well, it’s official, John Cena committed his first on-air murder at Payback. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. Bray Wyatt confirmed it — after being heartlessly crushed by Cena he felt the cold hand of the reaper pulling him down, and he realized that death is real. Not a lot of room for interpretation there! Thankfully Bray Wyatt is a comic book character (I think he’s part of the Archie universe) so he only missed one show before returning to life (hopefully as somebody no longer feuding with John Cena).

I hate that Nikki Bella is allowed to keep having this job based on her connections and good looks, but is supposed to be a babyface! she’s so annoying and awfully bad at acting, and that makes it so easy for everybody to hate her, but she’s supposed to be sympathetic or we’re supposed to be fine with her being there because people like looking at her ass and tits in her stupid sexy attire.

I HATE it.

but I even hate it as much how bland and barely average Brie Bella is, but she’s getting even more attention on the big shows and being placed vs the top heel in WWE, Miss Stephanie, than most others.

Lol, come on dude. Natalya vs Alicia was good, but not really the highlight of a show featuring Ziggler vs Rollins and BNB fighting Cesaro.

On another note, probably going nowhere but I like Dolph’s focus being on HHH rather than Rollins. He throws in “hand to Hunter” in his promo (which shoot made HHH laugh) and then after the top rope bulldog pin(he botched the X-Factor and shoukd continue to botch it cause that looks way better) he looks over at HHH, who quickly changes his worried face to a smile and fingers showing 2. Nice character work from those guys.

yeah, that was brilliant from HHH. he still has these little genius glimpses in his performance that kinda stopped being as clear, important or shown in long stretches like most of his and his wife’s promos before Wrestlemania were. and these work best in a manager role, which I’d be ok with if it becomes all he has to do from now forward with Rollins (and maybe Orton).

Rollins giving no explanation for his actions while continuing to wear his Shield gear gives me the slightest bit of hope that he’s faking his alliance with the Dark Side. And the twist? He didn’t even let Ambrose and Reigns in on his plans. I give this theory about a 10 percent chance of achieving reality, but I will cling to it at least through Summerslam.

And, I dunno, but I’m not feeling the Alicia Fox angle. It just seems now she’s just Crazy Wrestling Girl, rather than having things happen to her in wrestling that set off her Crazy. Kind of like taking Emma out of her NXT cocoon and having her be Weird Dancing Girl rather than a character whose dancing is an example of her enduring clumsiness.

For Rollins to be faking Triple H needs to have some plan beyond “break up Shield, gloat” for Rollins to be secretly working against. Doesn’t seem like there is. For the record, I’m totally fine with The Shield break-up — they’ve done all they can as a team.

As for Alicia — it’s not really an angle, it’s just her character and she’s great at it. Hey, AJ got a couple years and the longest Divas title reign of all time out of her crazy act, and Alicia is better at it.

We all knew they’d break up the Shield eventually — I’m surprised they did it with Bryan out, since the Shield are the most over thing they have active right now — but it seems like it was in the works for awhile. I’m just wondering after the Bryan-Bray angle if they’re developing a taste for these double-swerves.

Foxy is AMAZING at acting mentally unstable. She’s not AJ zany. She’s frightening. She also doesn’t have just one crazy thing she’s doing over and over again which is great. She does all kinds of weird shit. Alicia is a crazy, tall woman on the brink of complete insanity. Run for your lives, divas. Or roll her up which is 99% fatal for female wrestlers.

Alicia is less “legit, bus stop homeless person crazy” and more “4-year-old throwing a tantrum crazy” to me. She even pauses after each “crazy” beat and smiles at whoever’s watching her for reassurance.

I see both at various times. She has the potential for legitimate looking crazy and it comes out, sometimes, but other times she’s obviously playing crazy, and playing a child’s understanding of crazy to boot. It’s a weird mix and I hope she hews more towards actual crazy in the future.

That said, one thing I do really appreciate about her current character/angle; the male announce team are afraid of her. That’s a lot more credit than anyone every gave “OMG SO CRAZY” AJ. They would condescend to her every night while she was sitting right next to them and when she blew them up on the microphone their response was always “but your’e a crazy bitch, so.” Whereas with Fox, they at least pretend to be concerned that she might hurt them.

Somewhere down the line I hope we get the Fakslana mean girl power trio. Lana and Aksana work together since they can both be Russians, even though neither one is actually Russian (Lana is American, Aksana is Lithuanian), but when has that ever stopped the WWE before? Alicia Fox works as part of the team because… because… well, because she’s batshit crazy, that’s why.

Also, I’m still waiting for the deal with it sunglasses to come down on the picture of Putin. Why hasn’t this happened yet, WWE? You people are slacking.

I don’t understand how that’d work perfectly when Rollins has been the people’s talk (good, for his spots, or bad, for his mic work) since their face turn 4 months ago much more than either Ambrose or Reigns, unless they pretend like everyone will forget everything and that Rollins also was a part of the team and got as much victories as either man and got as much time to showcase his stuff as either as well.

he didn’t *need* to create two enemies from his best friends, or at least he didn’t need to do it in this way were everyone will hate him even more than ever. did he get his revenge now, that he hit them for “supposedly” outshining him? or is his goal something else? something he couldn’t have gotten as a part of the shield? and why couldn’t he get as a part of the shield? how can it not oppose most of what has been set up during the shield’s old heel run where they beat up all the faces, face run where they run off all the heels, and now after his heel turn where he pisses off all the faces back again? is this really gonna help him logically? I guess we’ll find out soon… so, still, “wait and see”.

More importantly, how many people remember any details about Paul Burchill, besides his “Imma get me some sister loving” angle? And how many matches did he actually win? Counting NXT (or FCW, whatever), Rollins has probably used his stomp way more than Burchill ever got to.

the more I think about it, the more I believe that “money” is the closest explanation to the turn being explained logically, no matter how cheap or lazy this explanation for this creative decision might be.

I’m find myself really stressed out over the logicality of this story, while I should realize that most people won’t care either way and would just like to concentrate on that this thing now gives us many possible interesting scenarios for feuds or match ups, and that the most important thing here is keeping everybody’s momentum going, and the fans’ interest in this thing.

@themosayat If they just explain HHH has been trying to get the architect of the Shield on his side for a while it makes more sense. Rollins can say he felt strong by HHH’s side. I hope Cody Rhodes joins them as well.

NOPE. absolutely not! I definitely hate it to my core whenever she’s goddamn smiling in the middle of some match just because she got her opponent in a headlock and is getting to wrestle on TV. it shows some desperation that opposes her stupid confident and accepting character that I think she keeps trying to show whenever she has one of the those dreadful interviews of hers.

I think all I want from Nattie (are we all calling her Nattie now? are we supposed to stop calling her Natalya anymore because Flair said so? he isn’t her father either, is he?! are every WWE legend BUT jim neidhart her father?) is to just be an emotionless killer in the ring, like she does when she drops someone on their ass and runs the ropes curve stomping their faces into the dirt and then dropkicking them back again. just stop trying to show any kind of emotions at all, because it always ends up with her embarrassing herself and me being more pissed off by it than most things in real life could make me.

Typically a flak jacket is a bullet proof vest of some kind. While body armor has been on the battle field for thousands of years, the exact term flak jacket comes from WWII. Originally worn by (mostly) bomber crews, it was designed to stop the shrapnel fired from Anti-aircraft guns that were colloquially know as Flak guns.

Rollins wears what I would call a tac vest, or tactical vest. Basically a vest with many jackets , pockets, and attachments to hold gear.

Before I took several years off watching wrestling, Smackdown! was the superior show. Once in a while I debate on watching smackdown, but then, I read these recaps and realize things have changed for the worst. Such a pity.

Also, I don’t blame Rusev for being pro-Russia when his insanely hot girlfriend is a Russian nationalist. Bro is totally doing it for the nookie. You gotta respect that.

Nathan hit the nail on the head for Rollins’ excuse. I’ll add a similar idea:

Rollins comes out on Raw and says he was tired of getting nowhere with The Shield. All he ever did with the Shield was get in a bunch of 6 man tag matches. In other words, no title shot opportunities, no big paydays (because remember, you only get paid the big bucks when you’re a champion in WWE canon).

So when HHH approached Rollins and offered him a significant pay raise, the opportunity to be the future of the WWE (and Evolution), an automatic entry into the MITB match, as well as getting mentorship by HHH, the COO of the WWE and Orton, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Rollins acknowledges he sold out and says everyone would have done it if they were in his position.

Lets face it. In the corporate world, most people would throw their work friends under the bus for that big promotion. That’s life. Might as well have Rollins be that guy.

I think Bo’s work on this week’s Smackdown was less “reading Nate’s opinion” and more “playing the character he’s perfected in NXT since he won the title”. Watch the build-up to his match with Neville at ArRIVAL.

Besides, if Rotunda brothers read this report, Bray would’ve quit a long time ago.